Landlords hit by mortgage interest relief changes

Landlords with a single property could be pushed into a higher tax bracket due to changes to mortgage interest relief.

The National Landlords Association (NLA) polled 754 landlords and found that 16% with a single property said they will move into a higher income tax bracket – a 7% increase from Q4 2016.

Changes to relief on finance costs on residential properties was brought in on 6 April 2017, restricting costs to the basic rate of income tax.

These include mortgage interest, interest on loans to buy furnishings and fees incurred when taking out or repaying mortgages.

This means that landlords will only be able to deduct a share of finance costs when calculating rental profits.

This is being phased in over 4 years:

Tax year

Percentage of costs deducted from profits

Percentage of costs available a basic rate reduction

2017/18

75%

25%

2018/19

50%

50%

2019/20

25%

75%

2020/21

0%

100%

NLA estimates that a landlord with a single property would need to increase rent by more than 11% to continue getting the same yield from the property. This equates to a rise of £116 per month for the average rental property.

Richard Lambert, chief executive officer at the NLA, said:

“Single property landlords are responsible for providing a huge proportion of the UK’s private rented homes, and these findings show that, slowly, more and more are waking up to the fact their tax bills could be significantly higher in the coming years.”